I made this deck
for GenCon 1997, because I was
tired of seeing all the usual Ascended speed, Architect zap, and Dragon/Architect
comeback/Bomb decks. I won 1 of 3 games in the Final Brawl, and the next day
tied for 4th place in the multiplayer championships. Along the way I learned
a valuable lesson: don't play a nasty deck (and toasting stuff is nasty, even
though this deck isn't high-volume like a good Reburial deck) if you want to
make new friends :)

The deck is based
around Rigorous Discipline and nifty things to copy. Butterfly Knight copied
onto any other big hitter is formidable. Wandering Monk can be copied to opponents'
Characters to force an auto-smoke if they're ahead of you. Ninja, Queen, and
Lord Shi all make good sources for copying. And even copying the Displaced onto
other foundations early in the game can really put the brakes on an opponent
who's out the gate faster than you, and late in the game they can ruin a Dragon
player's day (no more Ting Ting to Golden Comeback, sorry). I like to consider
this resource management - keeping an Architects player below the threshold
for Bomb or Dangerous Experiment, for example. This is the aspect of the deck
that pissed people off, because it forces them to the change the way they play
their deck, and not in a good way. I haven't played a deck with this much toasting
potential in it since.

Dark's Soft Whisper
is in here for the early game boost - failing an attack is easy in the early
game, and the extra 2 (or more, if you have multiple Whispers) is extremely
helpful. Power is good at any time of course, but the early game is where it
really helps this deck. With a perfect draw it's possible to get the Ninja out
on the first turn - Golden Candle, fail attack, 3xWhisper, Ninja. (that's never
happened to me with this deck, although I have done it in a smaller deck that
ran 5 Whispers. But I digress...)

There are lots
of Turtle Islands because the tiebreak system used at GenCon the
day before had emphasized burning-for-victory, so I swapped in the Turtle
Islands to make me less of an attractive target. Didn't matter, since the tiebreak
system was different in the championships. And there aren't any of the power
FSS (Kinoshita House, Fox Pass, etc.) because I made a point of not packing
them in my decks. It's a style thing :) The usual mix had a couple of Whirlpools,
a Fortress of Shadow and a Monkey House in place of the Turtle Islands.

The deck works
reasonably well, but probably wants to be a wee bit bigger to fatten the Events
and give it more flexibility.